Set in Stone (22 page)

Chapter 22

Connor ran to exhaustion. His feet tangled and he fell hard. After a moment's rest, he stood and groaned as his over-worked muscles protested, and he tasted bile at the back of his throat.

Despite the need to rush back to Rory, he walked for ten minutes before breaking back into a loping run. Four miles south of Alasdair, he rounded a bend and nearly ran into a chainmail-clad soldier, and for a second he thought it might be one of the Grandurians.

This man was dark-haired, not blonde. "What's got you so spooked, boy?"

"Grandurians."

The soldier grunted and pointed down the trail. "Captain is back about a quarter mile."

Connor thanked him and continued his jog south. He felt a little better being back among the soldiers. Here he would find help. Rory and his band of Guardians could handle the Grandurians. And Shona, she was a Petralist. Surely together they could overwhelm Ilse's band and drive them away.

How many people would die in the process?

He passed two more scouts before meeting up with Rory and Shona who were leading the main force. "You made good time," Rory said. "Report your findings."

After Connor related how Ilse's force took the town, Rory surprised him by grinning. "Perfect."

"But they took Lord Gavin and the Cutters to the manor."

"We know where they are, lad. They've bottled themselves up there. When we surround them, they'll surrender, or we'll destroy them."

"I get Ilse," Shona said.

"Remember, she lives until she talks."

"What if they fight?" Connor asked. "I was told she caught a sword with her bare hand and Erich twisted another like a ribbon."

"Those poor fools never had a chance," Rory snorted. "But if Ilse fights, we'll destroy them." He spoke with absolute confidence. "The enemy is trapped. The chase ends tonight."

"But won't they start hurting people when they see you coming?"

"They might. It's a risk, but there aren't many of them, and if we hit them hard and fast, they won't have time to bother with the prisoners."

Connor started to protest more, but Rory said, "Enough, lad. This is our job. We know what we're doing."

"I don't doubt it, sir, but she knows you're coming, and she doesn't sound worried."

"Then she's a bigger fool than I thought," Shona said.

Connor fell into step behind her, new fears churning in his already upset stomach. He had to believe Rory. The big soldier and his army would sweep Ilse from Alasdair.

He couldn't help but wonder what would happen if they didn't.

Chapter 23

The troop hiked upriver for a mile while Connor fumed at the pace. These were supposed to be great warriors. Couldn't they walk faster?

Even the return of his bow, collected from the barge by the Healer's burly assistant, helped but little. He agonized over what Ilse might be doing to the villagers, to his family. He offered to run ahead again but Rory refused to allow it.

As they began crossing a wide field that ran down to the river, the unmistakable sound of a pedra hunting cry broke the afternoon stillness. Connor forgot his other worries and scanned the sky for the beast as nearby soldiers gave each other questioning looks.

Connor doubted any of them had ever heard a pedra scream, which was rare even in Alasdair. The last time Connor heard one, he'd been out hunting high in the mountains and the sound had left him shaken all day. Luckily, they didn't usually bother humans.

Then again, neither did torcs.

Surrounded by a hundred soldiers, he wasn't worried. The pedra would stay far away, but he'd like to catch a glimpse of the monster. The cry came again from the west, much closer this time. The beast swooped out of the late afternoon sun, impossible to see until the last moment.

The man with the wide-brimmed hat pointed to where the huge pedra was diving to attack. "Ware, Captain. Conjured pedra."

Rory cursed and shouted, "At the ready."

As men shifted into tighter formations and the steely rasp of scores of swords being drawn rippled through the air, Connor frowned. A pedra would never attack a company this size.

The beast shot over head, barely a hundred feet up, and screamed again. This close, the sound set the hairs on Connor's arms standing on end. As it passed directly over him, Connor caught his first good look at its magnificent, terrifying form.

Its long, sinuous neck looked more like a waist-thick snake, while its torso was similar to the nuall's, and it moved like the giant mountain cats when on the ground. Connor had once seen one of the beasts run down a huge, flightless eoin, mighty wings wrapped back over its body.

The wings of this beast stretched a full twenty feet, covered with thick plumes worth a fortune if anyone could get their hands on them. Unlike most dark-colored pedras, this one was a uniform light gray, so its feathers would be worth even more. While flying, pedras kept their legs tucked up under their body with their claws retracted.

Beside him, Shona's face faded to ash gray, and Connor realized with a start she must be using some kind of Petralist power. Surprisingly, Rory and the Fast Rollers all faded to ashen skin too. Connor peered at the Guardian standing closest to him whose gray skin looked like stone. He wanted to touch it, but didn't dare.

The pedra screamed again and banked to the left in a tight turn that would bring it back over the group. It kept its long, snakelike neck twisted to watch them the entire time. The head capping that neck ended in a blocky, elongated snout. Thick and ugly, that head held wide-set eyes and a scarred-looking jaw. As it swooped toward them, it folded open its overlapping outer jaws to scream again.

Connor shuddered at the sight. The outer jaws were flaps of muscle capped with hook-like teeth that folded open both vertically and horizontally to reveal the rows of sharp teeth set into the inner jaw. He'd never seen the jaws up close, and at the sight the months of practicing with the bow took over. Almost before willing it, he pulled his bow around and nocked an arrow.

Connor didn't have time to wonder at the beast's inexplicable behavior as dropped lower. His world contracted until nothing existed but his arrow and the monster hurtling toward them. He drew the arrow back, held it for a second, and released.

The arrow sped upward and intercepted the pedra in its steep dive barely fifty feet from the company. He aimed for the face, but it twisted its sinuous head to dodge the blow, and the arrow struck it in the center of the chest.

The arrow splintered. The monster drove straight for Shona, who threw herself to the side, barely dodging the grasping claws. Soldiers swung at the pedra with swords, but their blades slashed nothing but the wind of its wake.

One of the monster's wings brushed Connor's face as it passed. The blow struck like a sledgehammer and threw him from his feet. He moaned with pain and clutched his cheek.

How had that monster survived his arrow? His bow wasn't as strong as the one he'd broken fighting the torc, but it was strong enough to drive an arrow through a pedra's hide at a hundred feet.

Strong hands hauled him to his feet. "Are you all right, lad?" one of the soldiers asked.

"I think so," he muttered through swollen lips, but when he dropped his hands away from his face, he found them covered with blood.

Something dripped down the back of his neck. Connor frowned and reached back to see if he'd hit something when he struck the ground. His hair was soaked and his hand came away dripping with water.

Water?

The soldier standing beside him grimaced. "By the spirits, lad, dodge next time."

The pedra screamed again. As one, they all ducked. One soldier shouted, "Three points west of north, Captain."

It was coming around again.

Connor had another arrow nocked before he even caught sight of the monster. Anger, fueled by pain, was replacing fear.

I'm going to kill this beast. I killed a torc. I can kill a pedra.

The monster dove straight for Shona again.

"Ward the lass," Rory called. The big soldier stepped in front of Shona and hefted a rock as big as Connor's head in one hand. His arm swelled, the leather plates sliding over each other to accommodate expanding muscles.

He threw the rock. It flew faster than Connor's arrow, and just as true.

Just like the arrow, it shattered.

Rock fragments exploded over the group, mixed with thick droplets of water like a spurt of rain. Unlike the arrow though, the impact rocked the monster. It wobbled in its flight and nearly crashed to the earth. Two mighty beats of its great wings steadied it and lifted it into the air again.

"That was my kill," Shona protested.

"Nay, lass," the big soldier said, his eyes never leaving the huge monster. "Didn't you hear the Pathfinder? That be no regular beast. It's conjured."

"Impossible."

"No, just very, very difficult."

As he spoke, Rory's arm returned to its normal size with a scraping of leather plates.

A nearby Guardian said, "Captain, no doubt it's conjured, but even if they have the strength to call such a beast, where'd they get the powder for it?"

"They have it," Shona said. "They stole it from the barge."

What were they talking about?

Even his Aunt Ailsa couldn't have sculpted a Pedra from the granite powder the Grandurians stole, nor could a sculpture fly like a living thing.

One of the soldiers cried out, "It means to strike again, sir."

"All right, lads," Captain Rory called. "Missile barrage."

Soldiers scattered, hunting around on the ground for stones. They piled them near the five leather-clad Guardians Rory had called Fast Rollers, and then assembled in units all around, swords at the ready. One unit prepared a weighted net.

The Fast Rollers hefted rocks and, as they readied to throw, their torsos and arms swelled with power, although not at the same rate. The biggest soldiers, already hugely muscled men, swelled only a little, while the rest expanded impossibly until they strained the limits of even their expandable armor. Connor finally understood the overlapping plates and straps. Regular armor would have hindered their powers, or split and been useless.

The pedra screamed and dove once more. Connor drew back the arrow.

"Throw!" Rory called.

Half a dozen rocks hurled into the air trying to knock the beast from the sky. Instead of trying to plow through the barrage as it had in the past, the pedra furled its wings, twisted in the air, and fell like a stone to the earth.

Most of the missiles missed it. One shattered against its heavy flanks. This time Connor clearly saw water spurting from its hide where the stone struck.

The pedra landed on its feet, already running. It covered thirty feet with each leaping stride and descended on the company in a blur of fangs and claws. It plowed through the first ranks, its dead gray eyes fixed on Shona the entire time.

Then the net-wielding unit moved forward and threw.

It leaped fifty feet straight up.

The net passed harmlessly just below its hind legs. The pedra hung in the air at the apex of its leap for a second, then its wings snapped open and it sailed down toward Shona.

One of the Fast Rollers, howling like a berserker, charged it, his skin as gray as the pedra's. The two collided with a resounding crash, and the man dug in his legs to halt the monster's advance with raw Guardian strength.

His ankles shattered.

He screamed and tumbled to the ground, the jagged stumps of his legs looking like a half-processed granite block in the Powder House. As he hit the ground, his body shrank to its normal size and the broken edges of the stumps of his legs softened and began to bleed. A lot.

The impact catapulted the pedra up into the air amid a watery spray. Cracks spider-webbed across its chest, and it screamed so loud Connor had to cover his ears. The monster glided over twenty men, just out of reach of their swords and hammers, still focused on Shona.